2026 Annual Meeting: Presidential Summit MCLE Program

The Case for Constitutional Failure

Numerous legal and political observers now worry that the nation is headed toward a constitutional crisis, perhaps a confrontation even worse than the events of January 6. But Jack Rakove, emeritus professor of history and political science at Stanford University, and Sonia Mittal, former Assistant United States Attorney and January 6 prosecutor, Associate Research Scholar in Law and Co-Director of the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School, take a different view. Rakove and Mittal will discuss whether we have now reached a condition of constitutional failure in which each of the three branches of government has effectively abdicated its fundamental responsibilities. This discussion, moderated by Lawrence O’Donnell, host of ‘The Last Word’ on MS NOW, explores their reasoning on this troubling question.